


Stranger Things

by TimmyJaybird



Series: Sleepless Nights [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, handjob, the bathtub!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 02:06:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2530043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimmyJaybird/pseuds/TimmyJaybird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beaten down and worn out from an arrest and confrontation, Jim makes his way back to his apartment, only to have a <i>friend</i> follow him home and insist upon helping to care for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stranger Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MemoryPalaceofWillGraham (JaxCat)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaxCat/gifts), [hannigramcracker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannigramcracker/gifts), [DizzyTealFox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DizzyTealFox/gifts).



> For my lovely trash family, because they listened to me headcanon this earlier. And I know I'm on hiatus for writing because of school, but I couldn't resist throwing this together!

There was an echo in his head, a pounding of blood through vessels and veins that left an avalanche, a _crash crash crash_ with each thump of his heart. Jim shoved open the door to his apartment, groped inside for the light switch as he took a step inside, hissed in annoyance when the light flickered on. He reached up, covered his eyes, brows furrowing as he called out, voice hoarse, “Barbara?”

Silence, an echo of his voice and nothing more. He tried again, and this time he was given a response- footsteps, but from behind him, outside the apartment, coming up the stairs. He tensed, turning on his heels as the door opened and a lanky man spilled forward, glancing at Jim with wide pale eyes, like ice, like the arctic, the end of the world wrapped inside his brittle skull.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Jim nearly growled as Oswald took a step towards him, holding his hands up in an almost innocent way. Jim knew not to buy it, knew better than to trust anyone who was in as deep as Oswald had been-

_But you let him live._

“Just checking in on a friend,” he offered, taking another step forward, “You were in sorry shape when you left.”

“Yeah well, you get jumped by thugs trying to take down their main dealer, you get beat up pretty bad.” Jim rubbed at the back of his neck, the ache in his shoulders- his mouth still tasted faintly of blood, a salty copper from where he had bit his lip when a fist connected with his gut. He was sure he had an array of bruises to show for his evening.

Oswald was watching him, tilting his head in an inquisitive way, taking in the pained glint in Jim’s eyes, the tension in his body. Jim clenched his fist, wanted to tell him to get lost- he was in over his head with this one, almost getting his ass locked up for murder and then having the entire GCPD looking at him as if he was a traitor for having spared him. Sometimes he wondered what it would have been like to pull the trigger-

But Jim knew he never would have. Not this man, not those circumstances. He was better than that.

“You’re going to stand in this hallway even if I lock you out here, aren’t you?” Oswald gave a shrug, a smile- it was charming, endearing, boyish in a way that made him seem eternally young. Jim sighed. “If you come inside, you leave in five minutes, and you were never here. I can’t have Barbara coming home and finding you.” He stepped aside, and Oswald walked in past him- close, close enough that Jim caught the faint, cool, almost minty smell to him.

He slammed the door and locked it, thinking he’d cleanse his entire body with whiskey.

Oswald was spinning around the room, glancing at everything, as Jim peeled his jacket off, hung it up and rustled out his cell phone, finding a text from Barbara. _Working late, don’t wait up sweetie_. He sighed, at least that meant she wouldn’t find Oswald, and he’d have to explain why the man was intruding on the place that was theirs, that was clean, in all of Gotham.

“As you can see, I’m alive,” Jim pointed out, “all safe and sound. So get going.”

“You look like shit.” Oswald walked over, reaching out and plucking at the collar of Jim’s shirt. Jim thought to step back from those long, nimble fingers, but didn’t.

“Sleep and a stiff drink will make me seem more like the living in the morning." Oswald frowned, didn’t step away from Jim.

“Mother used to always insist on a bath when I was younger,” Oswald started, “when I was beat- when I was ill or unwell.” He cut the word off with teeth sharp as knives, but it hung in the air, and Jim couldn’t help but wonder, just for a moment, what the first story had been, the first course of reasoning. _Beaten?_

“If you suggest I sit and waste my night soaking in a tub, then you’ve been knocked in the head too many times, Cobblepot. I’m getting a drink and I’m passing out.” Oswald still didn’t move, his finger tips brushing down past Jim’s collar, at his dirtied shirt, the dirt and blood and sweat of the day marking it as nothing more than a possible rag now. Another victim to his job, another mark of the day.

Those finger tips made Jim want it gone- and want his drink even more.

“Humor me,” Oswald whispered, “As your friend.”

“Only you think we’re friends.” The light in Oswald’s eyes dimmed, and for a moment Jim regretted it, wanted to drink the words back. With a sigh he huffed, “Fine, fine. I’ll sit in the damned tub for like five minutes.”

As if he had always been there, Oswald turned to hunt down the bathroom, leaving Jim watch him fade like dust.

*

He waited a few minutes, poured himself a glass of whiskey and drank it down. Then another, cradling it as he made his way to the bathroom. The light was on, the tub mostly filled and the room smelled sweet, like Barbara’s soaps. Jim didn’t want to have to explain this to her, and hoped she’d be gone until morning, so he could shower the smell off him.

He took a long swallow of his whiskey, eyed Oswald, and then sucked his teeth. “You’re leaving, right?” He reached up, popped a button on his shirt, raising his eyebrows, and Oswald hesitated- that one brief moment, breath, and for a second Jim thought he _wasn’t_ , that he’d stay and watch him peel his skin from his bones if he could. Peek into the marrow and see all those private places embedded inside him.

But then he was moving, sliding past Jim, closing the door behind him. Jim knew he was waiting, just on the other side- so close, listening to him breath. He didn’t know what Oswald saw in him, latched onto- he may have spared him but he had not been kind.

He set his whiskey on the sink and stripped, peeling his clothing from his aching body. His ribs and stomach boasted a plethora of bruises, lilacs and buttercups left to bloom on the expanses of angered flesh. Once he was naked, clothing left pilled on the tiles, he grabbed his whiskey, finished it off, and climbed into the tub, settling down in the water- off colored by whatever Oswald had dropped in it. He didn’t even want to ask how the man knew where to look for this. It was terrifying that he felt as if he belonged, had belonged, and had been there, for so long.

Jim leaned his head back, just as the door opened again. He didn’t watch the man walk in, only listened to his footsteps, the shift of clothing. Something was removed, and when he opened his eyes, Oswald had shed his jacket, was rolling the sleeves of his shirt up his ghostly pale arms.

“What are you doing?”

Oswald didn’t speak, just made his way back behind Jim, settling down on his knees on the cool tiles. When his fingers brushed along Jim’s broad shoulders, they were cold, caused his skin to prickle in goosebumps. Jim straightened up, but didn’t escape the touch as those fingers pressed suddenly, sharply, working into muscle.

“Never said anything about touching,” Jim grumbled, but couldn’t deny the relief stemming from those finger tips, the way they worked at the tension held deep in his muscles. Massaging along his neck, into the top of his back, Jim tipped forward, groaned, allowed the man- the criminal, he couldn’t stop reminding himself- suck every drop of the city from him and keep that toxin inside, to solidify in his gut and veins, to become his own.

When those hands pulled away, Jim didn’t say a word. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath- then was sucked back in when he felt Oswald pressing up along his back, his hand sinking past him, into the water, wetting something, then pulling the bath puff up along his chest, wetting his skin with the scented water that still felt warmed than his own flesh.

He should have forced that hand off, shoulder have told the man to leave- he had said a few minutes, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he told Oswald that was all- but he allowed it all to happen, leaned his head back against Oswald as he washed Gotham from the pores of his tired skin.

Jim closed his eyes again, could have drifted, to anywhere, anything, any time. A place that wasn’t this maelstrom, that wasn’t a broken child he had to raise back to its feet. A place that wasn’t Gotham, where he could breathe and not taste death down to his lungs. Against it all, echoing in his head, was not the rush of his own blood anymore- now it was the gentle _tap_ of Oswald’s heart, beating in his chest, against Jim’s skull. Like a caged bird, but calm- placid, knowing now was not the time to sing, but to watch, with those sharp small eyes. The time to wait, to breathe.

Jim inhaled, tipped his head back farther, losing himself completely. He felt Oswald’s fingers on his chest, down along his stomach, brushing past the obnoxiously colored puff that was Barbara’s favorite to touch just skin. A sound rolled from his throat, half groan, half sigh, and Oswald stilled his fingers, drumming them once on tight skin, stretched along over used muscle.

That moment of hesitation felt like eternity, like an hour locked away inside his head. Jim wasn’t sure why the stillness almost hurt, why there were coils burning inside him, like someone lit a match under his skin and settled back to watch his blood burn. He blamed the water, the fatigue, the numbing pain, the whiskey- he blamed it all, but not those cool fingers, not the chest he was leaning his head back into- not the rhythm of the heart that sang like a lullaby. Not the man behind him, but the city around him.

Oswald’s fingers moved again, tracing a line of muscle along Jim’s stomach, under the water. Jim exhaled, felt his cock twitch, would have cursed himself except for the calm that stretched over him, blanketed him, made him feel as if he was dreaming. He heard Oswald exhale, before his hand reached deeper, threading past the tussle of brown curls at Jim’s groin to wrap around the base of his cock. Jim groaned- full now, not a half sigh, and pushed up towards him, stretching out.

Oswald’s grip was gentle, tender in a way Jim hadn’t braced for. As his hand moved his grip tightened, but only slightly. As if he might hurt Jim- as if Gotham hadn’t already begun to break his bones and flay his skin.

He mumbled something, a word or a string of them, Jim wasn’t sure but he felt his lips moving, the air coming from deep inside him- and then Oswald exhaling into his hair, stroking him faster, murmuring something that he couldn’t recognize. He didn’t even recognize his own body in that moment, his skin and muscle and bones and blood all alien, strange and intruding into his very core. But Oswald- he didn’t feel strange. He felt _normal_.

Jim felt the man’s other hand wrap around him, fingers playing along his throat, tracing his adam’s apple as it bobbed, he swallowed. He thought he felt lips pressing against the side of his head as his hand twisted around the head of his cock, but he was so lost in everything and nothing that Jim couldn’t be sure.

He pushed his hips up again, met Oswald’s hand- was aching, throbbing now, couldn’t remember the last time he felt like his skin might melt off, that his skull was three sizes too small. “I-“ a single word, a declaration of himself, and Oswald stroked faster. Jim groaned, loud, louder than he meant, gave in to the tightness in his belly, the heat radiating through out his entire existence, let his orgasm pulse through him in waves, cresting as Oswald pressed closer and he was engulfed in his scent, the sound of his heart, the pulse of his blood. Jim drifted as it pulled him away, down down down into something like sleep, something like exhaustion, something like bliss.

*

The sound of the bedroom door closing woke him. His eyes blinked open against the dark of the room- lights off, curtains drawn- adjusted to it. He fell back into his skin, curled his toes, flexed his fingers, tried to remember that he had a body. There was an ache in his head, slightly- a fatigue to his body, but far less than he expected.

He rolled over, inhaled deeply, cracked his eyes open. He was alone, in bed, and a quick glance at the clock told him it was well after seven. He sat up, slowly, ran his hands back over his face, against his scalp. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, stood and stretched, his only article of clothing- a pair of cotton sleep pants- sliding just a fraction down his hips, Ignoring that, he padded across the room, to the door, slipped out. He heard the shower running, saw light coming from the part in the curtains in the kitchen.

His first destination was coffee, the sharp smell bringing him back to reality. He didn’t remember crawling into bed- he felt like his even as a haze, a drive back home and then nothing else but the melting of his skin, the dissolving of his bones. A bottle of whiskey was left on the counter, and Jim could taste it on his mouth still, faint, in the back of his throat.

He opened the cabinet, pulled down a mug, and poured his coffee. He drank it black, the heat enough to breathe life into him again. Leaning against the counter, he saw his cell phone and wallet piled there- left not where he would have. Ever. Frowning, cradling his mug, he leaned towards them, caught sight of a scrap of paper beneath it all- a tiny piece, torn hastily. He set his coffee down, pushed his things aside and lifted it, reading the scratchy writing in the light of the morning.

_What are friends for?_

No name, no signature, but Jim knew. His cheeks darkened, the paper shaking once in his hand. He could still hear the gentle tap of Oswald’s heart in his chest, against his skull- feel his finger tips, and the way he fell into delirium to them. He wanted to grit his teeth, to ball the paper up and toss it away- forget it ever happened-

Instead he opened his wallet and tucked it away, like a hidden photograph, framing it for eternal resting against his body. Then he reached for his coffee, closed his eyes and inhaled the warm scent, and decided stranger things had happened in Gotham then falling to injury and fatigue and the hands of a man who was not-quite sane and far too smart foe anyone’s well being.

When he sipped his coffee, he wondered if Oswald’s mouth was cool like his finger tips or warm like the heat emanating from his chest.


End file.
